Rumor: Lenovo ThinkPad tablet due for summer release

Although there’s been no official announcement from Lenovo itself, the This is my next website claims to have come into possession of some PowerPoint slides indicating that the Chinese computer company may be adding the final touches to a new tablet due for a summer release.

Called either the ThinkPad Tablet or Think Slate (both names appear on the slides) and billed as “a great consumer device with additional features for business professionals,” the tablet looks like it could pack a punch with its rather nifty, albeit rumored, specs.

Although it looks like the tablet will be running Honeycomb, Lenovo will customize it with its own “Lenovo Family UI.” The 1.6-pound mobile device will incorporate a 10.1-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800. And here’s an interesting part: It’ll come with a “true pen” option for “sketching and note-taking.” Recording the minutes of business meetings may never be quite the same again.

There’ll be front and back cameras on the device — great for video calls but as with other tablets of this size, we can’t imagine too many people using it on vacation as their main camera. The slides don’t appear to make any mention of the megapixel count. Ports include a USB 2.0, micro USB, and mini-HDMI. There’ll also be a full-size SD card slot. It’ll have Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity too.

Under the hood you’ll find a powerful dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, and for storage there are three options: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. Battery life is put at eight hours.

An optional keyboard looks highly likely, ideal for those who like their tablets to be more, well, like a laptop. This will be of interest to the aforementioned business users, as will its slew of security features, along with its claim to offer “seamless integration with your existing IT infrastructure.”

The PowerPoint slides refer to a July or August release for the US, with a “target starting price” of $499, which sounds pretty competitive when you consider its impressive specs. For a tablet only 0.55 inches thin, there certainly appears to be plenty going on inside.

It should be pointed out that some of the slides have 2009 printed on them. This is my next has put this down to “a mistake on Lenovo’s part, considering there was no such thing as Android 3.0 two years ago.” Make of that what you will…